etree

Grateful Dead Live at Providence Civic Center on 1987-09-09

Notes

This came to me as a supposed Matrix recording, but this is from an audience source. There is a ton of crowd noise, and there is altogether too much reverb around the vocals to think that Healy put it there (as opposed to the room). Check the first couple lines of "West LA," for instance, or the "inside the coliseum" line from "Masterpiece." The bass is also distant, a hallmark of audience recordings, even good ones. Overall, the issue for me is that the crowd is often louder than the music, especially during the relatively quiet parts (the intro to "FOTD," the nearly inaudible drums in the intro to "Cassidy," "China Doll") -- this is never the case on a true Matrix. Assuming it's an audience recording, it's a very good one, but not outstanding.

Stephen Porter's audience cassette supplies the first 1:28 of China Cat Sunflower, which is mostly tuning.

It's not clear the world needs another seed of this (the etree db already shows two at this point), but it's a pretty high-energy show. Thanks to Steve Aserkoff for the discs! Tracked, normalized, and seeded by Peter Braverman (braverman@earthlink.net), June 2002.

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